April 15, 2008

They forgot to mention author of emulator, so it’s looks like they made efi v8.

But u know who did it (http://netkas.org/?p=41)

So, this is violation of my authorship rights on pc efi v8.

pc_efi v8 now had been reloaded, and includes very basic license

which denies any commercial using. also updated with actual smbios.

can be found in topic of channel #leopard in irc.osx86.hu

text of license

License

EFI V1 – V8

Redistribution and use in binary form for direct or indirect commercial purposes, with or without modification, is stricktly forbidden.

Redistributions in binary form for non-commercial purposes must reproduce the above license notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.

Neither the names of EFI V1-V8 copyright owner nor the names of its contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived direct or indirect from this software.

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS “AS IS” AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT OWNER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

“As for the EFI emulator, under U.S. copyright law, that is now public domain. The authors freely distributed it with no license for more than two years with the intent of unrestricted dissemination. Under U.S. law, that constitutes placing the code in the public domain. Once the code has been placed in the public domain, it cannot be later removed from the public domain. By placing the code in the public domain, the author irrevocably relinquishes all ownership and rights in the copyright. “[S]oftware released thus goes completely out of control of the author, who, even if he subsequently so desires, cannot impose any restriction on its use.”

“Programs that are uncopyrighted because their authors intended to share them with everyone else are in the public domain. Programs in the public domain can be used without restriction as components of other programs.”

“The test of whether software has passed into the public domain is set out in Computer Associates Int’l v. Altai, 982 F.2d 693.This decision holds that computer software may enter the public domain through “freely accessible program exchanges and the like,” or by becoming “commonplace in the computer industry.”

I personally sympathize with Netkas’ concern about someone making money using his software (though was it a collaboration with other people too?), but the legal considerations above may trump any other opinions. Netkas may not consider PC_EFI to be in the same category as Linux, which many companies make money from even though it’s Open Source, but legally, he seems to have released it in a similar, if not the same fashion as Open Source, and so there seems to be no way of taking that back, regardless of any new additions to its license agreement.

At best, it may be that the version of PC_EFI that was current, just prior to Netkas adding the new restrictions on commercial use, may still be public domain, but any versions produced after that, aren’t. Or, it may be that all the code contained in even the later versions, that is the same as that in the earlier versions, is still public domain, and only the new, unique code produced after the new license restriction, is under Netkas’ control. But this might mean anyone would be free to use that prior code, which is the meat of the software, and then rewrite any newer code that Netkas develops, to produce workalike code, and thus continue to produce public domain versions of whatever new PC_EFI code Netkas develops.

I think what Psystar has done is awesome. No offense to netkas, I’ve been following his work for about 3 years now. However Psystar ultimately is putting the pressure on for Apple to open Mac Os X to other platforms than their own proprietary hardware. Which I think the ultimate goal of Netkas’ work is to get mac os x running on non-proprietary machines, is it not?

[…] credit for someone else’s work? If Psystar is not using the OSx86 Project’s code, why did they add a new restriction on their work requiring that it be used only for non-commercial p…? Redistribution and use in binary form for direct or indirect commercial purposes, with or without […]

[…] hackintosh computers.But now Psystar is selling a bootloader which is primarily based on someone else’s work. No credit was given or permission asked to use the code and sell it as a closed-source commercial […]